Today’s post is a piece submitted by student and new window cleaner, Cale Nard of Oklahoma…
There are many obstacles to consider when starting your own business. The five most important are attitude, startup materials, transportation, advertising, and how much to charge.
How do I know this? Well, my name is Cale Nard, and I started a successful window cleaning business on a budget.
Why?
- Because I want to earn money.
- Because I enjoy doing it.
- Because it fills a need.
- Because it makes other people happy.
The biggest thing that helped me in starting my business was God. He steered me through and guided me to success. However, God doesn’t do everything for you. You still have to put forth the effort and work toward your own success. God helps those who help themselves.
Another factor was my family. They have always encouraged me to do things well and do them right. I would not be where I am now without them.
Support is good, but having the drive and determination to succeed is even more important.
Interested in starting your own window cleaning business? Here are five key points that helped me achieve my goal.
Attitude
Most importantly, you should always maintain a proactive attitude. If you don’t do what you say you will do, customers won’t want to hire you and they certainly will not refer you to their friends. Being kind and quick to smile helps too.
Startup Materials
Keep in mind that you will most likely have to use cheaper materials to get yourself started. Expecting to be a huge business overnight is unrealistic and nearly impossible, unless you have a great deal of funds to start out. More than likely, you will have to start small and build up. As you gain customers and business, you can expand your tools, making your work quicker and more efficient.
To start, I got a small, cheap tote container. This I filled with my cleaning solution. I also purchased a few towels, a belt and pouch, a squeegee, and a washer.
Transportation
Getting to and from jobs will be an important part of starting up a window business, as well as transporting your tools. To start, I used my bike. I purchased a basket that hooks on the rear of my seat, similar to those police bikes have. This made it easier to carry my tools with me.
Advertising
Once you have the basics figured out, you need customers. To find your initial customer, you have to advertise. For this, I went out and bought a cheap flash drive. I made up a simple flyer on my computer, and I took it to the UPS Store (Fedex/Kinkos, Staples, or OfficeMax will also work). They printed my flyers for about 5 cents per page.
Then, I had to distribute the flyers. I rode my bike around my neighborhood and sent out about 600 flyers. Some people might say this is a less efficient way of doing it, but apparently it worked. I found over a hundred people wanting me to clean their windows!
Fees
Throughout my childhood, a man lived down the street from my house and he was the nicest guy that you could ever meet. I went to him one day and told him I was thinking of starting a window cleaning business, but I did not know how much to charge.
“How much do you think that I should charge?”
He told me that he thought that I should just start out small like $8 bucks for all their windows. So that’s what I did. About every 3 months I bumped the price up a dollar. Pretty soon with the help of my brother, Pruitt, we were making it rain money!
And getting started is really that simple. There’s not much to it other than determination and hard work. Make sure you have a good foundation and once you have that, your business will grow and grow.
Have a story to tell? Want to write a guest post for the Brilliant Windows blog? Contact me for more details!
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Jamie, excellent article that you wrote on starting your own window cleaning business. Well, do you have any tips on where to find local window cleaning businesses? That’s actually what my wife and I are trying to look for this week since all of our home windows are all dirty and scratched up.
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My teenage sons want to start a window cleaning business. I think that they need help in figuring out a price point for different cleaning services they are offering. What do typical windows cost to clean. If they can be competitive, I think they’ll really make some money.
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Jamie, what an excellent advice that you mentioned about advertising a windows cleaning business. It sure is something that a few friends and I are wanting to do but, it would mostly be a commercial window cleaning service. Our customers would be businesses both big and small as well as the private ones.
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Success of any business depends upon advertising,resources and attitude.After reading above article i realized i need gratitude for success in my cleaning business.
Thank you so much for sharing!
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Business books and guides can get you a long way in your journey. It is important to have a good guide too from an individual.
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You have a good point about starting small with the first set of materials you have in place for your window cleaning business. As you shared, you can always grow your inventory when your business expands.
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I totally agree with your point that “Support is good, but having the drive and determination to succeed is even more important”.We can’t get success without inner zeal.Nice post,thanks for sharing!
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Nowadays advertising become very important for new startup businesses because of high competition.We can also provide some gift hampers like scratch cards or gift coupons to attract customers.Other tips are useful too.Thanks for sharing!
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You’ve made great points about starting your own window cleaning business. Securing the right funding and appropriately calculating running costs are essential aspects of business success.
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I agree with you that transportation is important in a window cleaning business. I can see how this would be important when it comes to carrying the tools and ladders necessary for the job. Thank you so much for the helpful business tips.
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Using a cleaning service increases the likelihood of you, your coworkers, or family members becoming more consistent around the house or office. If you’re picking up loose clothes and putting garbage in the trash, the cleaners can focus on the heavy lifting. This type of efficiency saves you both time and money! So hiring a cleaner can give a boost to your cleaning habits! For more information, click the link.
Moreover: https://spotlessangel.com/5-reasons-to-hire-a-cleaning-service
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It’s a really great article, thanks for sharing such informative knowledge with us. We also provide window washing Services, Visit our site for more information: https://www.fieldpromax.com/
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Thank you so much for the helpful business advice. I agree with you that transportation is important in the business of window cleaning. I can see how important it will be to carry the tools and ladders needed for job.
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Thanks for the helpful business advice. I agree with you that transportaion is very important in the business of window cleaning.
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You posted an amazing article about how to start your own window cleaning service. So, do you have any recommendations for local window washing companies? That’s exactly what my parents are looking for this week, because all of our windows are filthy and scratched. Thank You!!
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I read this article. It’s very informative and i was glad to read.
We also provide cleaning services. Interested person can visit this site.
Thank You!!
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Thanks for sharing this informative article.
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It was a great post. I really enjoyed how you explained it. It was helpful, and I think everyone should know. I hope you will bring more of this content. Thank you! very much.
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I’m really impressed with your ideas. The way you think about it is really amazing and unique. I will definitely try these ideas to decorate my home. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas. I hope you’ll share many great ideas like this in the future.